Hamnet
When Eliza hears these claims, made in her presence by people in the street, by neighbours, by those to whom she sells gloves, she doesn’t pretend not to have heard. She stops in her tracks. She holds the eye of the gossip in question (she has an unnerving stare: this she knows – her brother has told her often enough; it is, he says, something to do with the purity of her eye-colour, the way she can open her eyes wide enough for the whole iris to be seen). She is only thirteen but she is tall for her age. She holds their gaze long enough for them to drop their stare, for them to shuffle off, chastised by her boldness, her silent severity. There is, she has found, great power to be had in silence. Which is something this brother of hers has never learnt.
From the archives
·
1975
JR
"The camera snapped and joined the others, swinging to their stride as they passed in beneath the sill and out of the view of Mister Gibbs, molested from behind by words,
— Energy may be changed but not destroyed . . .
From a basement door Mister Leroy rose into the sunlight bearing a pail and his smile, intimate even at the distance turned directly up to Gibbs before there was chance to evade it, as he glided over the gravel in the silence of the boxing shoes laced tightly to the image of nonviolence his passage insisted everywhere he went.
— Scientists believe that the total amount of energy in the world today is the same as it was at the beginning of time . . .
— Turn that off . . .
— But wait Mister Gibbs it’s not over, that’s our studio lesson we’ll be tested on . . .
— All right let’s have order here, order . . .! he’d reached the set himself and snapped it into darkness.
Read more of this excerpt...
JR
"The camera snapped and joined the others, swinging to their stride as they passed in beneath the sill and out of the view of Mister Gibbs, molested from behind by words,
— Energy may be changed but not destroyed . . .
From a basement door Mister Leroy rose into the sunlight bearing a pail and his smile, intimate even at the distance turned directly up to Gibbs before there was chance to evade it, as he glided over the gravel in the silence of the boxing shoes laced tightly to the image of nonviolence his passage insisted everywhere he went.
— Scientists believe that the total amount of energy in the world today is the same as it was at the beginning of time . . .
— Turn that off . . .
— But wait Mister Gibbs it’s not over, that’s our studio lesson we’ll be tested on . . .
— All right let’s have order here, order . . .! he’d reached the set himself and snapped it into darkness.
Read more of this excerpt...
WORDS TO LIVE BY
2011 ·
NON-FICTION
NEW MUSIC